A BOON FOR FLASH MEMORY.(MP3 music player, made by Pontis GmbH, in a boon to the makers of flash memory cards)(Brief Article)

Industry Week, February, 1999 by TERESKO, JOHN

Shown is an MP3 portable music player from Pontis GmbH that signals happiness for Sunnyvale, Calif.-based SanDisk Corp. and other makers of flash memory cards. "The new Pontis music player signals the emergence of a major new market trend: the digital distribution of music via the Web and the use of solid-state flash electronics to replace mechanical, spinning parts," says Leon Malmed, SanDisk's senior vice president of sales and marketing.

Worldwide player sales are expected to grow from 1.3 million units in 2000 to more than 14 million in 2002, says Semico Research Corp., a Phoenix market-research firm. The player uses SanDisk's flash cards or the MultiMediaCards codeveloped with Siemens AG.